Jobless Claims Keep Weak Tone For Unemployment Data Hopes

Jobless Claims from the Labor Department are still too high.  The jobless claims figure was down 1,000 to 400,000 on the nose.  The prior week’s preliminary 398,000 was revised to 401,000, making that streak of 400,000-plus actually longer than what the Labor Department originally told us last week.

The four-week moving average is meant to smooth out the volatility and that figure came down by 6,750 jobs to a new multi-week low of 407,750.

The army of unemployed, measured by the continuing jobless claims, posted a small increase and that is not a sign of real jobs recovery.  That figure rose by 10,000 rose by 10,000 to 3,730,000 with a one-week lag in the reporting.

ADP gave another larger gain than the trackers were calling for from the Labor Department on Friday.  Tomorrow’s targets from Bloomberg are currently for unemployment to be flat at 9.2% and the non-Farm payrolls are expected to gain by 75,000 with private payrolls gaining 100,000 for July.

The beatings continue…

JON C. OGG